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SFLTIMES.COM | SOUTH FLORIDA TIMES | JANUARY 21 — JANUARY 27, 2016 | 3A Nation Martin Luther King had complicated legacy on nation's gun violence secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and author of the book, This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible. “If you went to King's house in 1955 or 1956, there were guns,'' Cobb said in an interview. “When they bombed his house in 1956, his first instinct was to apply for a gun permit. He moves toward nonviolence slowly. By the 1960s, he abandoned the idea of weapons for self-defense.” Some blacks, Cobb recalled, jokingly referring to their personal weapons as “nonviolent pistols.” “They would say, even as they were cleaning their rifles, how glad they were to be part of the movement,'' Cobb said. “They knew King wasn't going to be carrying a weapon, so people's attitude was, ‘We're not going to let the white people kill him.’” The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a King aide who pHoto Courtesy of www.wsbraDio.Com Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. stands with other civil rights leaders on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn., a day before he was assassinated at approximately the same place. By ERRIN HAINES WHACK Associated Press Writer Martin Luther King Jr. was surrounded by guns, even though he didn't like them. At times, armed foot soldiers protected the Baptist preacher and his family. As he led protests across the rural South, King often stood in proximity of guns - wielded by local police, state troopers or hostile people in the crowds. On April 4, 1968, King became one of America's most famous victims of gun violence. Just as guns were a complicated issue for King in his lifetime, they loom large over the 30th anniversary of the holiday honoring his birthday. Urban violence, mass shootings and killings of unarmed black males by police have caused alarm, touched off protests and revived the nation's conversation about gun control. President Barack Obama recently took executive action to tighten federal gun restrictions, invoking King as he urged citizens to press for change. “There is nothing in the history that sug- gests that Martin Luther King felt that guns weren't useful for self-defense,” said Adam Winkler, UCLA law professor and author of the book Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America. “Clearly, guns were used to protect (King) ... (He) could not rely on the government.” Inside the civil rights movement, some activists saw guns as a necessary means of self-defense. As a Southerner, King understood that strong culture of gun possession, even though he came to reject it, said Charles E. Cobb, Jr., a former field King maintained his message of love KING, FROM 2 A While violence created outrage, televised accounts of such events also dramatized the injustice facing his people. King used that strategy in an effort to “shame the nation into action.” When he told me the army of protesters in the Poor Peo- ple’s Campaign was to invade “the very seat of power,” I asked, “How effective would they be?” He replied that he had few illusions about persuading Congress to action. “Congress sits there, recalcitrant, a sickness upon them. When you look at Congress, you see they are never moved to act unless the nation gets them to move. We never got the civil rights bill until we had Selma,” he said, referring to the assault on peaceful demonstrators in that Alabama town. “A new kind of Selma is needed,” he said. King told me he had long weighed and agonized over was at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, when King was shot and killed, said King was mindful of the role of guns. ``Dr. King's point was that the protection of one's home is self-evident, but he was quick to add that you're more likely to shoot a relative or commit suicide (with a gun),'' Jackson said. ``He refused to keep a gun in his house for that reason.'' After his home was bombed, King got rid of his gun and eschewed weapons, said King lieutenant Andrew Young. Before joining King, Young owned a shotgun and a handgun. The movement did not condemn defensive violence, Young explained; King simply did not engage in it. “He decided he was not going to have a gun, and he didn't want anybody with guns around him,” Young said. In his book, Winkler writes that after the 1956 bombing, which occurred during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, King applied for a concealed carry permit. He was denied by a county sheriff. That incident has led some to embrace King as a supporter of the Second Amendment. In 2014, commentator Colion Noir the risk of such action, but he felt the Poor People's campaign was a “last-ditch chance for nonviolence.” I asked, “What about the risk of a takeover by extremists?” King replied, “I am con- vinced I can control them. If we came to a situation where our actions were leading to violence, I would call it off.” He began talking about posted a video on NRANews.com citing King's gun permit application as proof that he was not opposed to guns. “Dr. King was a nonviolent man, but even he understood the realities of selfdefense and protecting his home and his family in the face of life-threatening violence,” said Noir. After President John Kennedy was killed in 1963, Young recalled King telling him: “Guns are going to be the death of this country.” “He said, Kennedy had Secret Service around him with guns and they couldn't protect him, which says guns can't protect you,” Young said. According to a compilation of King's writings and speeches by Stanford University historian Clayborne Carson, King said in November 1963 that Kennedy's assassination could be blamed in part on Americans' casual attitudes about gun violence. King said: “By our readiness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim, by allowing our movie and television screens to teach our children that the hero is one who masters the art of shooting and the technique of killing, by allowing all these developments, we have created an atmosphere in which violence and hatred have become popular pastimes.” King's nonviolent mentality stood in stark contrast to those armed, hate-filled whites who showed up peaceful protests, and the more radical black groups that emerged later, said King biographer Taylor Branch. “Even after black power made guns kind of popular in the radical movement, King said he would never carry a gun,” Branch said. “He rejected all forms of violence and got stronger on it as he went along.” Cobb, however, said many of King's follow- ers “felt their duty was to protect the movement, grab a rifle” and drive away threats. “They didn't see any contradiction be- tween saying they were part of the nonviolent movement and keeping their weapons clean and ready,” Cobb said. the enormous wealth of America, which he felt should be used through tax policies to promote chances of a decent life for the poor. Already, King had called for a guaranteed annual wage - a call that alarmed not only the business world, but the federal government. Some black leaders and scholars thought King's plans for his Poor People's Campaign were becoming too militant, and a few were beginning to desert him, saying he should stick to civil rights. King also spoke of the pressures facing him, including criticism from his own staff. There were times when he had to oppose his own followers, when he felt it necessary to take his message to a wider public. At this time, King was either admired or hated. & SALE 5O 8O CLEA CLEARANCE FASHI FA HION & HOME ME CE to % FRE FREE S IPSH PPI Fr e h ppi g ith 9 p $ wni se REE HIPP & FREE R FREE RETURNS 9 urchase. U.S. n y. xc u El o l sion as pply; e m s e acys.com/f RN PING ONLINE URNS NL NE /fr e ee r turns off % REG & O. RIG. P* RICES. ff